As Cold As Ice (5 page)

Of course, politics being what they were,
that wasn’t all that difficult when one lived in a world where the
president couldn’t so much as keep the smallest of promises, but it
sounded impressive to say it.

Soren nodded. “It was his idea. I asked him
to put you on the list of candidates for this project, and he might
agree. He just wants to see you first.”

Soren looked at her then, his blue eyes
hard, but he didn’t say anything.

A stern look on his face like that could
only mean that he wanted to say something, but was being held back
because of the recorders in the room.

She figured it out on her own easily enough.
Soren wanted Jessica to go along with the ruse that she had been
planning to start a fight with the guards all along just for the
sake of blending in with whoever they were planning on
releasing.

She hated it, but she bit her lips and
nodded.

Soren didn’t look away from her. Not for
another three seconds. In the quiet of her clinic room, that was a
long time.

He finally blinked, as if coming out of a
stupor, and he cleared his throat before turning around, giving
Jessica his back. “I’ll be waiting out in the hall. Take a
shower—it’ll be private—and get dressed. Your clothes are in that
cabinet right there. I’ll be riding up to the top floor with
you.”

Jessica rubbed her wrists, scratching the
spot beneath her metal shackles that had itched ever since she woke
up, and she nodded. Soren didn’t even have to hear her say anything
as he walked out the door, scribbling something onto his
clipboard.

*****

The hot shower was the best part, as was
being able to use the bathroom without having someone help her with
it. Soren said there wasn’t anyone watching her in there, and she
believed him. It was easy to believe him, easy to trust him. She’d
always known him to be good to the prisoners, so if he said there
was no one watching her, then Jessica could breathe a little
easier.

She wondered how many strings he’d had to
pull, how many people he’d had to ask and beg in order to get her
even this.

Not for the first time, she felt like a
total jerk for threatening him. She’d liked Soren, even back when
they barely saw each other coming and going through the building.
He’d always seemed like a nice enough guy without being a total
pushover, and she never heard him gossiping about his latest lay.
Not like some of the other guys did.

And they did it loudly enough that Jessica,
along with every other female employee, heard it from down the
halls. Like it was their mating call or something.

Standing under the pathetically small shower
head, she sighed as a hot spray that wasn’t even that powerful
cascaded down her hair and back. Knowing she had this only because
of him, well, it made her wish she’d handled things a little better
when she saw him for the first time in her cell.

She’d kissed him, rough and hard, probably
not the type of thing he was used to, and then threatened to put
him in a cell beside hers if he didn’t help her.

Looking back, and considering he’d clicked
on that scrambler pen of his, she probably hadn’t needed to do
that. Why else would he turn off the audio in the room if it wasn’t
to have a conversation that he didn’t want anyone else to hear? He
might’ve even helped her if she hadn’t threatened him.

Her picture probably wasn’t his screensaver
anymore.

When she got out of the tiny shower, feeling
better than she had in weeks—closer to human, at least—she took
care of her teeth and tried her best to style her hair without any
products. She didn’t have any makeup in there, but there was a tiny
bottle of skin cream, and she slathered her face and hands with it.
She couldn’t shave her legs, but she didn’t think she’d be wearing
a skirt when she went to see Layton.

He didn’t have a reputation of having sex
with his employees, or the paranormals his company studied, but it
never hurt to look good for a man who needed a whole lot of
impressing. Statistics were what they were, and if she stood tall
with her shoulders back, looked confident and well put-together,
then there was a better-than-even chance Layton would believe those
things about her regardless of the shackles that were on her
wrists.

Her clothes were the same ones she’d been
brought in with, and thankfully, they’d been washed. Recently. She
could smell the fabric softener on her jeans, socks, bra and
underwear and blouse.

Soren’s doing again? Maybe it was also his
doing that her push-up bra hadn’t been replaced with something a
little more on the casual side. The female inmates certainly didn’t
get bras that had underwire in them.

Jessica got dressed, tried not to think
about Soren as she did so, and ran her fingers through her dark
hair one more time, giving it the look of ‘I don’t care and I’m
sexy for it’. Or was it ‘rolled out of bed after a good, long
lay’?

Either way, despite the lack of makeup, when
Jessica opened the unlocked door of her room and Soren got one look
at her, his eyes widened.

She was stupidly pleased with that. If he
was still attracted to her, then it meant he couldn’t hate her
enough to stop helping her, right?

She immediately felt guilty for the thought.
To disguise it, just in case Soren could read her mind or
something, she smiled and lifted her hands, as if presenting a new
outfit to a friend. “What do you think?”

God, she hated herself right then.

Soren turned away from her, but he couldn’t
stop the way his cheeks darkened. “You look good.”

Jessica lowered her arms. “That’s it? That’s
all I get?”

Soren managed to smile at her. “You look
very good. I think you’re ready to see Mr. Layton.”

Jessica suddenly didn’t care what Layton
thought of her. “Wish I had some better shoes, though,” she said,
looking down at her feet.

“
What’s wrong with your
shoes? Do they have holes in them?” Soren asked, like he would rush
to get her another pair if they did.

“
No, but they don’t have
much of a heel, and they won’t click when I walk.”

“
You want your shoes to
make noise when you walk?” Soren asked, and Jessica swore she’d
never seen a man so clueless in her entire life. “Why do all girls
do that?”

“
The girls in the office
have clicky shoes?”

Soren rolled his eyes and looked up to the
ceiling, as if he would find all of life’s answers there. “I swear,
they’re like cats who’ve purposely put bells on themselves. I can
hear them all coming from down the hall.”

Jessica laughed at his description, kind of
stunned he didn’t like it. Most guys did, even if they didn’t
realize it themselves.

Her boots went up slightly past her ankles,
and they still accented the rest of her calves nicely, but the
heels were thick, made of good, sturdy rubber probably about an
inch high, giving her some small amount of extra height. Not a sexy
amount, though.

“
These are good work boots
for me, but they don’t really impress. A lot of guys like a woman
in heels that are higher. They show off the woman’s legs better. I
think the clicking sound turned into a warning signal for their
libidos to get going.”

Soren shook his head, and his smile
resembled more of a crooked smirk. “Like a dog that knows it’s
about to get a treat whenever it hears a bell ring. They’ve been
trained to drool on command.”

Jessica laughed. “Something like that.”

Soren didn’t say anything. His neck looked
tight, and Jessica couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. That
made her nervous in a strange way, so she kept talking.

“
I guess this is better
anyway. Layton didn’t get to be a billionaire because he wasn’t
aware of the little things people tried to pull over on him. If
anything, these will make me look ready to work a field instead of
around an office.”

Soren nodded, and the tightness in his
throat melted away.

Then Jessica thought she got it.

Was he…? No way, was
he
really
feeling
jealous that Jessica had wanted to wear heels for the owner of the
company?

Seriously?

She shouldn’t be pleased by that. Christ,
she didn’t even know if that’s what had him so tense.

“
Let’s go,” Soren said,
waiting for her to step beside him before he started to
move.

There weren’t any guards following them, but
considering guards were stationed all over the halls at regular
intervals, Jessica couldn’t do anything to escape anyway.

She had to put her trust in Soren. Trust
that he knew what he was doing, and that his plan would work out in
the long run. She was going to have to trust him. And not look at
his ass while thinking about how nice it was as they walked the
halls.

Chapter Five

Jessica rode the elevator up to the top
floor with Soren. It wasn't a tall building by any means. They
weren't exactly headquartered in the middle of the city, but even
all the way out there, where the factories pumped clouds of black
smoke so thick into the air she could probably climb them with her
bare hands, a ten-story glass tower on top of what looked like a
normal brick building was fairly impressive.

For whatever reason, Markus J. Layton didn't
go into the city with the rest of the CEO's, millionaires and
billionaires. He stayed there, in the tower, coming and going only
for work. Occasionally, he made an appearance at some charity event
that required ball gowns, ten thousand dollar suits, and thousand
dollar plates of food with portions so small it was practically
legal theft to charge prices like that.

But when the proceeds went to charity, for
victims who'd been wronged by paranormals, or to the pockets of
politicians, then it was probably all more than worth it for a man
like Mark Layton.

Besides, for a billionaire, tossing out a
couple thousand dollars here and there was probably like when
Jessica paid for her coffee and takeout with the change that had
accumulated at the bottom of her purse. She'd just wanted to get
rid of it.

Soren barely spoke a word to her. He seemed
more nervous than she was. His body was tense, and when she glanced
down, his fists were clenched.

Made sense, she supposed. They were about to
stand in front of the man who could snap his fingers and legally
have Soren euthanized if he found out what Soren was.

The reminder of Jessica's threat came back
to her, and she wanted so badly to tell him she wasn't going to
turn him in.

The medications she’d seen him take would
require it to be something no regular fire-starter or werewolf
could keep up with.

It had been a mistake to threaten him
before. She didn't know what his story was, and why he worked
there, but hell, Jessica had a story of her own. She'd had good
reason to work for the enemy.

At least, she'd
thought
she
had.

It was only logical to assume the same must
be true for Soren. Hell, she’d even kind of liked him. He was the
only guy in a white coat in this building she’d ever been able to
have a conversation with…

She didn't dare say anything. The only time
in her life she'd ever felt this bad was when she'd done something
to upset Ethan, and he was her only family.

They were standing right next to each other,
the top floor fast approaching.

Jessica moved her arm. She let it drift
slowly toward him, and then she angled her hand.

Her fingers brushed his palm. She wasn't
sure what her goal was, aside from comforting him, because it
certainly wasn't to hold his hand.

Regardless, Soren yanked his hand away and
stared at her with wide blue eyes, parted lips, and a slight frown
pulling at his brow.

Jessica's face heated. If her power had been
fire, like Cindy, she might've lit the both of them ablaze by
accident.

Fuck, what
had
she been
doing?

Soren cleared his throat. Of course, neither
of them said anything about it, and when the elevator stopped and
dinged and the doors slid open, Soren grabbed her by the arm and
pulled her forward. His grip was a little harder than she thought
it needed to be, but Jessica was also a big girl, and she didn't
complain about a little pain.

"When you see him, don't approach him. You
can look him in the eyes, but do not challenge him. He'll want to
hear you tell him your reasons for working for him all these years,
so if you really want in the program, I suggest you be honest and
tell him exactly how much you hate paranormals."

That wouldn't have been
honest at all. Jessica looked around and realized that, unlike
downstairs, there was only one guard up there. He was standing at
the door, far enough away that, even if he'd been paying attention,
he would've had to strain to hear what was being said. Especially
beneath that white joke of a
Star
Wars
-like helmet.

Which meant there were bugs around these
halls that were listening in on them.

Surprise, surprise.

Jessica looked Soren in the eyes. She kept
her gaze hard, and though she wasn't an actor, if anyone was
watching her, studying her face and critiquing how sincere she
looked, she was fairly sure she would pass that test.

"I'll tell him everything I know."

She'd tell Mark Layton only what he needed
to hear.

Soren nodded, and they both started walking
forward again. Soren tipped his chin to the guy standing at the
double doors as he opened one of them and let Jessica enter first.
He didn't need to flash an ID badge or anything.